This invention relates to the securing of vehicle doors in the closed position, and has particular reference to the securing of an irregularly shaped door for a vehicle such as a motor home or other recreational vehicle (herein referred to as an "RV").
In many RV's, there is a side entry door near the front of the vehicle with a front or leading side of the door following the slope of the windshield. Such doors typically are hinged on the door frame along their leading sides, on the lower portion of the door that is straight, with the top of the hinge or hinges about midway between the top and bottom of the door. The trailing or free side of the door is latched to the frame in a conventional manner, usually by a handle-operated latch assembly, but the upper approximately one-half of the leading edge of the door is not supported, and thus is subject to fluttering while the vehicle is in motion at highway speeds.
Such fluttering can be the result of both vehicle vibration and external influences such as those caused by wind and varying air pressures which can produce substantial fluttering forces on the door. The hinges and the door latch hold the lower portion of the door securely in place, but the upper front portion does not lie along the hinge axis, is not directly hinged to the vehicle and therefore is essentially loose in the door frame so as to be particularly vulnerable to the fluttering forces.
Efforts that have been made by RV manufacturers to solve this problem include reinforcing the upper portions of such doors to make them stiffer so that the support of the hinged lower portions also will support the loose upper portions. This is relatively expensive and is a less than completely satisfactory solution, and many doors of this kind continue to be used, and continue to be subject to this problem.